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> Animals and humans prefer sugar over artificial sweeteners in experiments, and that could be because a specific gut sensor cell… I have an alternative hypoth
by incrudible 5y ago
> Animals and humans prefer sugar over artificial sweeteners in experiments, and that could be because a specific gut sensor cell…
I have an alternative hypothesis: It is because sugar tastes better. In your mouth, on your tongue. Evolutionarily, this could be explained by sugar not being a calorically worthless synthetic compound that happens to taste sweet and may act as a laxative.
- iqanq 5y agoAs an example, many sweeteners are known for their crappy aftertaste.
- thaumasiotes 5y agoThat wouldn't exactly distinguish them from sugar.
- dboreham 5y agoDo you mean High Fructose Corn Syrup?
- thaumasiotes 5y agoNo.
- astrange 5y agoStevia's weird herbal aftertaste makes it good for root beer, though. I think monkfruit is the best alternative sweetener I've tasted.
- ledauphin 5y agotry erythritol. it's very similar to monkfruit, and cheaper everywhere I've looked.
- Semaphor 5y agoIt’s 60% as sweet as sugar, while monkfruit is several times as sweet. And it behaves different when heated. But unlike monkfruit, it’s legal in the EU ;)
- astrange 5y agoI mean, I don't really add sweeteners to things myself so I'm just judging ingredient labels. Was going to comment on sugar alcohols' well known… laxative effects, but apparently erythritol is better about that so that's interesting.
- Semaphor 5y agoI love it in cola. It’s a perfect fit, and I’m sad that it’s very rare to find stevia sweetened sugar-free cola (so far I found one in Germany, and they apparently decided that normal coke is not sweet enough…)
- bradknowles 5y agoNote that Stevia is a problem for people who have had kidney stones. It contains high amounts of Oxalate, which is the chemical that is at the core of the most common form of kidney stone. Spinach and Almonds also contain a lot of Oxalate. Ask me how I know.
- Dylan16807 5y agoIf basic search results can be believed: A 100 gram serving of spinach has 645mg of oxalate. A one ounce serving of almonds has 122. Replacing an ounce of sugar with stevia gives you 6mg. Stevia is high in oxalate per gram, but it's hundreds of times sweeter than sugar. How low do you need to go? I see one site recommending staying under 200mg of oxalate per day.
- bradknowles 5y agoI target 0mg of Oxalate whenever possible, because I know that there are many hidden sources of Oxalate that I cannot reasonably detect or prevent.
- vintermann 5y agoOyster mushrooms too, apparently.
- jarrell_mark 5y agoThere's a new one called Reb M. Most stevia extracts are Reb A because it's found in high concentrations in Stevia. Reb M has less of an aftertaste and tastes more like sugar than Reb A. But it's expensive to produce because it's < 1% of the steviods in Stevia. 3 methods are changing the story here. (1) producing reb m through fermentation. Purecane does this and is available on Amazon right now. (2) breeding stevia plants that have higher concentrations of reb m. (3) converting reb a into reb m using enzymes
- rootusrootus 5y agoSome of the newer formulations aren't half bad. Starting with Coke Zero, but now things like Dr Pepper and Pepsi have 'Zero' versions that are surprisingly good. I haven't dug into what they changed to make it work. The bottle of Pepsi Zero sitting in front of me says it still uses aspartame, but it doesn't have that bitter aftertaste I've come to associate with anything sweetened with aspartame.
- mkoubaa 5y agoI'm curious why virtually all soda labels I know of went to a new better tasting "zero" branding at exactly the same time
- idontknowifican 5y agodiet is now a bad word, zero isn’t, so now we’re all zero and not diet. obesity solved
- 1xdevnet 5y agoMy understanding was more that Coke Zero was originally targeted at men, who apparently viewed "diet" sodas as being for women. [0] "We're positioning Coke Zero as a defender and celebrator of guy enjoyment." It doesn't hurt that it's a chance to reformulate without people complaining about the change like "New Coke" (which was allegedly based on the Diet Coke of the time[1]) and so the Zero branding has likely expanded across the Coca-Cola lineup and other brands to expand that reach and introduce changes - and incidentally give them a chance to mess with their agreements with bottlers the same way as when they switched to high-fructose corn syrup [2] [3]. [0] https://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/should-mens-products-fear-a-womans-touch https://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/should-mens-products-fear-a-woman... [1] https://casetext.com/case/coca-cola-bottling-co-v-coca-cola-co-3 https://casetext.com/case/coca-cola-bottling-co-v-coca-cola-... [2] https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Real_Thing/jfGzHxGnfocC?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=isbn%3A081297364X&pg=PA149 https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Real_Thing/jfGzHxGn... [3] https://www.pressreader.com/usa/houston-chronicle-sunday/20120122/310977108683609 https://www.pressreader.com/usa/houston-chronicle-sunday/201...
- lotsofpulp 5y agoI think soda with sugar is disgustingly sweet, but I like the taste of aspartame.
- dawnerd 5y agoI absolutely can't stand the mouthfeel for "sugar" sodas, both the real cane sugar and HFCS variants. It's disgusting. All these newer "zero" versions have pretty much nailed the taste without the gross mouthfeel.
- jliptzin 5y agoI have always actually preferred the taste of Diet Coke to regular coke.